A Personal Story About Gaming as Pain Relief

Here's to the cathartic power of video games.

By
Nathanael Peacock

My name is Nathanael, and this is a story about why I play games, what they mean to me, and how they help me to cope with chronic pain. It will be a look back on my life so far, my experience as a gamer, and the games that have helped me.

In writing this piece I hope that other people in pain can find some commonalities in what I have to say, and together we can keep looking for new worlds to live in, escape to or in which we can simply spend a few hours away from our worries.

(Oh, and just be clear at the outset - in what follows I by no means want to imply that I’ve had the worst or the hardest life. I’ve had amazing opportunities, worked with incredible people, and had a support network that got me where I am today.)

Growing up, and up, and up

I’m 27 years old now, but I was diagnosed with a chronic spine condition at the age of twelve.

Scheuermann's disease would never kill me, it wouldn’t keep me from doing most things and living an ordinary life. But I was a gamer, through and through. So a normal life was never what I wanted. I wanted adventure, to go out into the great wide world and see things that had never been seen, tame beasts, answer riddles and find my place in a world much larger than a doctor’s office. Scheuermann’s disease was a weight around my neck, something that I couldn’t escape from, and a hole that I couldn’t write my way out of.

I wanted adventure, to go out into the great wide world and see things that had never been seen, tame beasts, answer riddles and find my place in a world much larger than a doctor's office.

By definition someone with Scheuermann's disease has irregular or wedge-shaped vertebrae in their spine. It can vary wildly; some people have a barely noticeable hunch in their back, others look more like Quasimodo within a few years. Mine was somewhere in the middle, wearing clothes no one could really tell anything was wrong with me, but I never took my shirt off to go swimming.

I was in a moderate amount of pain, because without your spine to support the weight of your body, it puts your muscles in constant strain trying to stop you from toppling over. The pain wasn’t bad enough that it hampered my schooling, but did keep me from sport, or anything too strenuous. So I played games, lost myself in books, and found friends that enjoyed the same things I did. I pulled myself out of my own head and into other worlds through The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or Age of Empires, or Black & White. I loved RPGs, strategy games and really anything that let me live another life.

My doctors decided that I would need ongoing monitoring, because the treatments were pretty severe, and would take up years of my high-school life. I would either need to wear a custom-fitted brace to adjust my spine over the course of the subsequent years, or go in for major adjustment surgery. At the time I was counting my lucky stars that the doctors didn’t want to do either - I didn’t much like the idea of going to school in a brace, and surgery seemed like a whole other set of problems. So I plodded along ignoring or covering up my condition, while managing the pain with anti-inflammatories and physio visits.

I saw my surgeon every six months from the ages of twelve to eighteen, and the curvature of my spine stayed at around 70°, by that point it was too late to wear a brace as I’d mostly finished growing, and they didn’t normally operate unless it was closer to 80°. So for the time being, I felt like I was out of the woods. By this point I was 6’1”, riding my first motorbike and heading to uni to study journalism.

Games, surgery, and a point of no return

By the time I was 23 I had finished university and was working part-time. But my pain had become a lot worse. I was regularly seeing a physiotherapist, as well as a pain therapist looking for ways to help me deal with my ongoing issues without crippling my career or social life. She gave me mental blocking exercises to do, as well as physical exercises in tandem with my physio to help me try and get stronger. However, I was barely sleeping, barely able to focus at work and struggling to find the confidence to apply for bigger and better jobs. But one piece of advice stuck out in everything that pain specialist told me. She said:

“Find a way to occupy your mind for a few hours a day. Whether it’s reading books, listening to music or playing cards - find some way to give your brain a rest and let your body recover.”

She suggested that yes, I was clearly in a lot of pain. But there were also psychosomatic symptoms relating to how I dealt with my pain and my own feelings of insecurity about myself. It was about this time that I started reading about a PS3 game called Journey, I read the review on IGN, and thought I’d give it a shot. That night I did my usual meditation exercises, took my painkillers and sat down on the couch to give this game a look. One of the most common things I’d heard about Journey was to “go in blind” so I did.

Two-ish hours later I watched the credits roll, and found myself thinking about the story. I grabbed my laptop and went online to read more. I knew that I was still in pain - I wasn’t miraculously cured - but I was feeling a profound stillness. A feeling that I’d been a part of something larger than myself, and that gave me a moment of quiet reflection and pause.

Journey had taken me out of my body for those two hours, and that was a blessing in itself.

Later that year I saw my surgeon again, and after some more scans and tests it turned out that surgery was my only option. My spinal curvature had continued to 85°, and without surgery things were likely to get a lot worse.

In 2013 I had my first surgery. It involved straightening out the curve in my spine using two titanium rods and thirteen screws to reinforce the change. I then had large portions of my spine ground flat to accommodate the implants, and remaining sections fused using bone graft from the pieces removed. All up the surgery took nine hours, and afterwards I set off most airport metal detectors. I also gained an extra three inches in height. Along with the extra height, the change pulled my barrel-chest in line, which pushed my shoulders outwards.

Frankly, for a while I felt like a superhero as I was learning to walk again around the hospital.

All up the surgery took nine hours, and afterwards I set off most airport metal detectors. I also gained an extra three inches in height.

However, the thing I very quickly realised was that being in hospital is bloody boring! I spent a couple of hours a day working with physiotherapists on walking and moving, I was on enough medication to keep me pain free, but because I had to keep moving, not enough to knock me out. So there was a lot of waiting, watching bad TV and not much else. Waiting for family, medication, food, or just waiting for the next person to walk through the door.

That is until my family came to visit and brought my laptop and my Nintendo 3DS! Suddenly I could backtrack through Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, traipse through the jungles in Monster Hunter, and spend hours of the long nights in hospital perfecting my team in Fire Emblem.

Frankly, it was my DS that kept me from going mad for the two weeks I spent in hospital that first time. This continued as I recovered; I continued to work with my physiotherapists, continued to look for new games to keep my mind occupied and eventually found an equilibrium that let me work, study, and game. The new worlds that I was exploring in my own time gave me the drive and confidence to push myself in the real world and look for new ways to express myself.

I feel like we've been here before

Over the next two years I eventually needed two more surgeries to correct damage to my implants and my spine. In 2014 I had somehow broken six titanium screws at the base of my ribs that needed to be replaced with larger, more heavy-duty screws. I knew something was wrong when I started waking up in pain, and going to bed sore. So after a while I knew that another surgery was inevitable, the scans just showed me what I already knew.

As I was going through physio and recovery, learning to move again I was exploring the caribbean as Edward Kenway, and I was taking over Seattle as Delsin Rowe.

It was at the same time as my second surgery that my girlfriend bought me a PlayStation 4 along with Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and Infamous: Second Son. As I was going through physio and recovery, learning to move again - and coming off the powerful medication that they put you on post-surgery - I was exploring the caribbean as Edward Kenway, and I was taking over Seattle as Delsin Rowe.

Even though I could only get out of bed to take my medication, and my walking ability reached the end of my street, in my spare time I could see other sides of the planet, travel through time and explore any number of brand new worlds. It gave me a freedom that I wasn’t capable of, and that exploration meant that when I was able to get up and walk to the shops, then drive my car, then head back to work - these achievements were all the more important.

En garde

After my third surgery, which happened in December 2015, I started to realise that I hadn’t had a pain-free day in as long as I could remember. It was a scary thing to realise, but the more I thought about it, the more that thought became a part of me. The more I started to realise that the aches and pains I was feeling through my neck and back at age 25 would be with me for the rest of my life. I’d needed to have new screws put into my neck, and repair some more broken parts in my shoulders.

But rather than take my pain as a crutch, and lean further into the medications that only dulled my mind and numbed my body, I decided to get something done.

I was playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt at the time, and Geralt served as somewhat of a catalyst for the new me that I decided to create. He was grizzled, yes. He was bitter and somewhat of a fiend, I’ll admit. But he never let his pain or his own emotional turmoil get in the way of the work that he had to do. He was a man-made monster that held himself to a higher standard than those around him. So I set out to make myself more like him.

Geralt served as somewhat of a catalyst for the new me that I decided to create... he never let his pain or his own emotional turmoil get in the way of the work that he had to do.

Unfortunately, mutagens are in short supply in outer Melbourne. I couldn’t learn magic or hunt harpies and griffins. But I could learn to sword-fight.

One of the wonderful things about living in Melbourne is its strange and eclectic mix of culture. So when I went to my physio and said that I wanted to get stronger, he suggested all number of boxing and swimming regimes to try out. I said that wasn’t going to work; frankly gyms bore the hell out of me, and we agreed boxing wouldn’t be great with a titanium spine. So together we found a list of Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) schools in and around Melbourne.

I felt like I’d stepped into a whole new world that I never knew existed. Somewhere complete with nerds just like me, but where I could get fit, hopefully reduce my pain and learn something downright cool at the same time. After trying a few I chose a German longsword class in Melbourne. At the start it seemed like the right mix of fitness (longswords are much heavier than you think) and skill-based challenge. The school is run by a small group of instructors who regularly compete in global competitions, and are ranked as some of the best in Australia, if not the world.

Beyond the skills I was learning, it also gave me a community to talk to, Facebook friends with whom to debate, and even more gamers to play with. It was something I’d never found before outside my own friendship groups; a community of like-minded nerds that I didn’t need to explain myself to.

And the man that I have to thank is a grizzled old Witcher from Rivia.

Looking ahead

Right now, it’s early 2018. It’s been two and a bit years since my last surgery. And it looks like I might need another in the near future. My neck and lower back are reacting badly to the implants, and I’m having constant headaches.

Even though I’m struggling at the moment, I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to work through whatever needs to be done, and come out the other side. I’m working with a new set of surgeons, still pushing myself physically, and currently diving headfirst into Monster Hunter: World. I’m also very proud to be writing for IGN - because that’s something I’ve always wanted to do.

There it is, that’s my story. It’s not easy to write, or to relive. But If anyone out there is going through something similar, and feeling like things are just too hard to cope - please talk to someone. Find someone to understand.

It could be a family member, teacher, doctor or trainer. Find someone to share what you’re going through. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that none of those major changes that helped me came from dealing with it alone.

And understand that we as gamers have the keys to a special world that other people can barely dream of. We can be space captains, monster hunters, valiant knights and fearsome warriors at the drop of a hat.

Our stories are wider and greater than any that have come before, and we have a community that spans the globe. So play, talk, and argue on the internet. Because together we can do some pretty awesome things and all come out stronger on the other side.

Nathanael Peacock is a freelance games journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Why not say hey on Twitter?